Why I loathe RNG

I originally posted this topic on the official forums but as it's most likely to be burried there, I want to open the discussion here too.

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After 5 months of pretty hardcore playing and farming, I saw 3 precursors drop to pretty new players (between 1500 and 2500 achievement points) the past few days I decided I’m pretty much done with the game.In 5 months …

- I have farmed over 5000 events, yet I never found an exotic / precursor.- I have farmed over 250 dungeon paths, yet I never found a named exotic / precursor.- I have farmed over 250 fractals, yet I never found a named exotic / precursor.- I have opened over 50 black lion chests and only received a few boosters along with transformation potions.- I have spent over 500k karma on Orrian Boxes and have yet to receive a mini (love gathering these in any mmo).

I have reached world completion on 5 characters of which I deleted two, I have seen the world inside out and I have dropped absolutely nothing anywhere while doing so.

I have hoarded nearly 5.4k achievement points (only 200 are from infinite sources) yet again nowhere any closer to my legendary.

Now after 5 months I have absolutely nothing to show for it, I am nowhere closer to my legendary with my bad luck, I have only half of a T3 set along with a few dungeon skins on all my characters.

I played Korean MMO grindfests for 6 years and even had better drops there. This is simply mindblowing that a supposed AAA mmo can have this much RNG involved.

i agree that RNG is a stupid mechanic that has nothing to do with skill or effort, and it's disheartening when you put in the work and don't get rewarded for it, yet somebody gets a precursor on their first 10 tries in the mystic forge.

Anything luck based is not really that great,the chance for a precursor weapon is truly ridiculous. If anything why not reward the player by giving him something like this:

You see a NPC who's a researcher from your main city, hearing about your exploits he calls your attention and tells you about a place wich he uncovered while researching, and found a cave full of tough monster that's residing somewhere. He would ask you to bring some friends with you and try to clear the cave for him so he could find out what's inside.

This would be instanced like a dungeon and you would fight trough really tough battles (to make the aquisiton process challenging), having like 4 different end bosses. Each one would drop a piece of a "mysterious object". you would bring this back to the researcher who would comment on the fact that this looks like it's missing some pieces, and so by killing the other 3 monsters you get new pieces, wich you bring back and he will turn into the precursor weapon (you would get to choose the weapon, making the NPC a vendor of sorts, you would only be able to get a piece of the weapon per day tough, and the more easy acess to precursos will in turn make their prices drop)

I don't think it's that far fetched since the weapon is mostly for looks and the rest for creating the legendary is still a chore, but still it's much more fair than counting on 100% luck to get your precursor weapon.

First of all if you did 250 dungeon paths you'd have at least 200G not counting the stuff to sell. I've spent just a little under 1million karma (had a starter of 500k and with the returning karma stuff I've gained another 400-500k. I had 10G worth of those unusable objects and yet I'veonly gotten 2 of those mini at 700-800k karma. RNG is in every game. Luck is a subjectable thing. The more you care about something the less chances are you're gonna get it. Once you stop caring, guess what? It comes to you.

BTW Saying not being able to show anything DUDEEEE you have 5,400 AP. That's enought to me to know that's someone who played everything in this game.
As for Legendary, You could always worked your way with Gifts of Might and Fortune because they're needed for every recipe. I've completed all the gifts and waiting on a precursor hunt or whatever, but I'm not gonna bitch about how unluck I am... that's life, that's game. If your main goal was to get Legendary then farm some more. With all those events and dungeosn done you should've had enough money to buy a precursor. Better ask yourself a question where did you spend all those money on?

What I can tell you is that obsessing over a legendary is simply wrong.
It's like going to talk to a new girl and immediately propose marriage and discuss the name of your children.
No, save a bit every day and you'll eventually get there.
I'm saving 5 ectos a day for instance. In 3 months I will have 500 ectos.
Use this logic, don't go the obsessive-compulsive route, it's a one-way trip.

Anything luck based is not really that great,the chance for a precursor weapon is truly ridiculous. If anything why not reward the player by giving him something like this:

You see a NPC who's a researcher from your main city, hearing about your exploits he calls your attention and tells you about a place wich he uncovered while researching, and found a cave full of tough monster that's residing somewhere. He would ask you to bring some friends with you and try to clear the cave for him so he could find out what's inside.

This would be instanced like a dungeon and you would fight trough really tough battles (to make the aquisiton process challenging), having like 4 different end bosses. Each one would drop a piece of a "mysterious object". you would bring this back to the researcher who would comment on the fact that this looks like it's missing some pieces, and so by killing the other 3 monsters you get new pieces, wich you bring back and he will turn into the precursor weapon (you would get to choose the weapon, making the NPC a vendor of sorts, you would only be able to get a piece of the weapon per day tough, and the more easy acess to precursos will in turn make their prices drop)

I don't think it's that far fetched since the weapon is mostly for looks and the rest for creating the legendary is still a chore, but still it's much more fair than counting on 100% luck to get your precursor weapon.

ideas like this are awesome, and i'm in full support of them, but the problem is the carrot on the stick. good players can group up together and beat it on the first try, and it will only be X amount of days before they get the precursor. with the current system, however, you either have to farms hundreds of hours for enough gold to buy one, or farm hundreds of hours for enough gold/mats to throw a ton of items in the MF and hope you get lucky. unfortunately, their current way is something that keeps players coming back. while awesome ideas like yours are a quick and easy way to reach an end goal.

2. keep it the way it is (very long and tedious unless you get lucky), which often doesn't reward the player for hard work.

the thing most people are arguing isn't that the process is too long, but that the process is too unrewarding. i'd support a precursor hunt that required beating incredibly difficult content, or going on a tough scavenger hunt, or whatever. i wouldn't even care if it took 100-200 hours. as long as i feel like i'm DOING something towards my goal, and i feel like i'm making progress. know what happens if i throw 200g worth of weapons into the forge and get nothing back? well....nothing. i've made no progress whatsoever. i could throw 200g more into the forge tomorrow and still get nothing. or what if i save 500g to buy the precursor on the TP and then it shoots up to 600g tomorrow? things like those provide no real sense of progress for the player, in addition to not being fun, challenging, or really rewarding.

so no, it's not about "give it to me now or i quit." it's about "give me a goal to work towards that is challenging, meaningful, creative and rewarding, and yes, even time consuming."

The difference between this and a Korean game is you don't NEED anything beyond basic exotics to progress in the higher parts of the game. Your legendary is purely cosmetic. As is cultural armour. They're nice toys but they're not stronger than my nice toys.

The difference between this and a Korean game is you don't NEED anything beyond basic exotics to progress in the higher parts of the game. Your legendary is purely cosmetic. As is cultural armour. They're nice toys but they're not stronger than my nice toys.

Just because you make shit optional, that doesn't mean it's not a REALLY bad idea.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "random" as "Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard." This concept of randomness suggests a non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination.

Why do you think they made the game this way? Welcome to trading post wars 2 and gem store wars 2.

I am on the same page as you really, 6 months later and it still feels like a massive grindfest with little reward and now getting even less rewards in fractals and dungeons since the last patch, whether it's just bad rng or the new loot system they brought in is bugged or really is just a loot nerf I don't know...but something changed in last patch even if anet won't admit it.

I was for buy to play before launch but after seeing the effects the anet business team and gem store and gold for gems has had on the game, im starting to wish GW2 was a subscription mmo with no microtransactions. I was never someone who liked sub model games but now they are starting to look more appealing.

Why do you think they made the game this way? Welcome to trading post wars 2 and gem store wars 2.

I am on the same page as you really, 6 months later and it still feels like a massive grindfest with little reward and now getting even less rewards in fractals and dungeons since the last patch, whether it's just bad rng or the new loot system they brought in is bugged or really is just a loot nerf I don't know...but something changed in last patch even if anet won't admit it.

I was for buy to play before launch but after seeing the effects the anet business team and gem store and gold for gems has had on the game, im starting to wish GW2 was a subscription mmo with no microtransactions. I was never someone who liked sub model games but now they are starting to look more appealing.

I see where you're coming from my fellow Freelancer fan, but I don't agree with some things. As far as the power plateau is concerned, one can easily buy the exotics they need from the TP if they don't want to craft them or do dungeons. Yeah it will take a while to earn the gold maybe but it's perfectly doable for everyone, even a guy who plays relatively few hours like me. The legendaries are just fluff, cosmetics really.

I can't say about dungeon rewards of course, I don't do them. But personally, I really don't feel oblidged in any way to use the cash shop, with the exception of purchasing some character slots at some point.

I originally posted this topic on the official forums but as it's most likely to be burried there, I want to open the discussion here too.

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After 5 months of pretty hardcore playing and farming, I saw 3 precursors drop to pretty new players (between 1500 and 2500 achievement points) the past few days I decided I’m pretty much done with the game.In 5 months …

- I have farmed over 5000 events, yet I never found an exotic / precursor.- I have farmed over 250 dungeon paths, yet I never found a named exotic / precursor.- I have farmed over 250 fractals, yet I never found a named exotic / precursor.- I have opened over 50 black lion chests and only received a few boosters along with transformation potions.- I have spent over 500k karma on Orrian Boxes and have yet to receive a mini (love gathering these in any mmo).

I have reached world completion on 5 characters of which I deleted two, I have seen the world inside out and I have dropped absolutely nothing anywhere while doing so.

I have hoarded nearly 5.4k achievement points (only 200 are from infinite sources) yet again nowhere any closer to my legendary.

Now after 5 months I have absolutely nothing to show for it, I am nowhere closer to my legendary with my bad luck, I have only half of a T3 set along with a few dungeon skins on all my characters.

I played Korean MMO grindfests for 6 years and even had better drops there. This is simply mindblowing that a supposed AAA mmo can have this much RNG involved.

Anyone else who has the same experience as me?

Similar situation here, i have 8 characters (4 100%) 5 in full exotic, hundreds of skill points 1 mill+ karma......

All i have seen as drops are two crapy exotics (both unusable on any of my chars) !

Believe me i`m no stranger to grind, been doing it in different MMO`s for 10 years now, but sincerely GW2 is worst by miles in "rewards/drops" department !

Now when i saw how much time i will need to gear JUST ONE character in Ascended gear (laurel`s) my hope has took another hit, for the game that bragged about being casual friendly, fun experience with little to no grind......it turned ugly very fast .

I reached the same opinion as OP.Playing since head start till now you realize that at the end there is nothing really interesting in this game besides good graphic, even armor look in some cases worse than in WoW .Thats why I'm giving TERA a try and we will see.I wish you all good luck in GW 2 , you will need it:)

You can't blow off the OP's concern just by throwing out the 'it's optional' straw man.

Legendaries are just about the only really hard to get accomplishment in this game that you can display in game.
For some people this is a worthy challenge and a goal to work towards.

So of the select few who complete the guantlet of challenges/requirements, making the final keystone requirement random, takes it out of the realm of proving oneself and drops it down to the level of some cheesy carny game of chance.

It is a classic oxymoron, complete this great set of challenges, but then go back to doing ordinary things and hope for the best.

I gotta say, OP, you're just flat-out extremely unlucky.I don't farm. I do dungeons with the guild fairly regularly, I wander around and smack things sometimes which also brings in money, but most of it comes from the TP.But even then, I've gotten probably half a dozen named exotics from drops(One was from a jumping puzzle =0), and I got a precursor from the karka event(It was the spear precursor, pretty much the lowest value one, but still!).

And anyone with the "It's optional" crap is a moronic fanboy. Goddamn I am so sick of that argument. I tell map chat I find the refugee events boring, "IT'S OPTIONAL, DUMBASS", OP tells everyone he's having bad luck trying to get a precursor, "IT'S OPTIONAL, DUMBASS".The "It's optional" argument presents no resolution whatsoever to the issue, regardless of what side you're on. Yes, it's optional, but then again so is every other part of the entire game. When something in a game is broken or kills your fun, it needs to be acknowledged and something needs to be done. We only put up with the unfun-yet-profitable parts because Anet hasn't found a way to make them fun yet.With OP's case, he's just extremely unlucky, and I'm not sure what can be done about that. Perhaps Anet could make laurels awarded for existing achievements, and then put the precursors up for a price of X laurels. So even if he's farming and not getting what he wants, he's still getting achievements which work towards that precursor.

But how IS it broken?
It would be broken if you NEEDED precursors/legendaries in order to do certain stuff, but as of now it is noway better than an exotic that you can get for around 1-2g on the Trading Post.

They are part of something of the game that is not meant for everyone. Simple as that.

- I have farmed over 5000 events, yet I never found an exotic / precursor.

That's terribly unlucky and I can sympathize with that. Now I wouldn't consider myself awfully lucky but since headstart I have found an exotic or two. No precursors however. That said of course, I routinely play with others in a dungeon group who get one good drop after another. Do you use mag find gear or mag find food? For me, none of that mag find rubbish has ever worked. Any exotics I found were picked up while running on zero MF.

Now after 5 months I have absolutely nothing to show for it, I am nowhere closer to my legendary with my bad luck, I have only half of a T3 set along with a few dungeon skins on all my characters.

This part is hard to understand. After running the many dungeons you have, there should be a tonne of dungeon tokens in your possession which will net you a lot of exotic dungeon gear. Not to mention the coin from completion from each path. A full T3 cultural is easily yours. What else are you spending your coin on and do you keep track of how much you're spending?

In jest however, RNG is everywhere even in real life. Our mere appearance is funnily enough, a result of something similar to RNG. Genes combining in random ways...

Why do you think they made the game this way? Welcome to trading post wars 2 and gem store wars 2.

I am on the same page as you really, 6 months later and it still feels like a massive grindfest with little reward and now getting even less rewards in fractals and dungeons since the last patch, whether it's just bad rng or the new loot system they brought in is bugged or really is just a loot nerf I don't know...but something changed in last patch even if anet won't admit it.

I was for buy to play before launch but after seeing the effects the anet business team and gem store and gold for gems has had on the game, im starting to wish GW2 was a subscription mmo with no microtransactions. I was never someone who liked sub model games but now they are starting to look more appealing.

I kinda agree with this, the massive grind this game has isn't much better than asian mmo's, true many can argue you can have max stats easily. ANet intended for legendary items to be a long term but I think it's way too long.

At the moment making fast money is almost impossible (unless you do CoF P1 all the time).

Sometimes I feel ANet is holding back better rewards in favor of the gem store.

I liked how the Baldur's Gate series rewarded me for exploring dungeons and killing adamantite golems (ps AAAAAAAAAAAAANGH). I did not like how in Diablo I got an amazing and powerful weapon for hitting a red skeleton.

In Guild Wars 2, the 'main meat' of the 'rewards' rely far too much on the RNG, thus I've lost near complete interest in striving for them.

I think all the complaints about precursors, while valid, are a bit--let's say impatient. ANet has acknowledged the precursor issue. We know they are at least looking into and even initially designing a scavenger hunt for precursors. Even if that never sees the light of day, it is safe to assume they will do SOMETHING eventually. Maybe the screwed up with the initial system. People make mistakes. But you don't want them to rush to a solution, that could have nasty side effects. Like giving everyone and his brother 12 precursors.

I've only just starting working for my legendary, and have put precursor at the bottom of the list, so maybe I'll feel different later when that's all I have left. But the problem has been acknowledged. We just need patience. Not something we do well in general.

It's because exotic's DO NOT drop in the open world. An exotic drop is pretty much a once in a lifetime thing. They are super low on chests in dungeons. The only way to get them is to buy rares off TP and hope you get some out of MF or save up your greens, the only high end items that drop in GW2 and hope you get rares from the MF.

Or grather daily nodes and buy them. The drop rates in this game is what's hurting it more then anything. Exotics should not be 500+ gold. Legendary is fine to be all insane that's what they are for. But with everything getting so rare even a basic exotic is starting to get far beyond reach. The only way to gear up in this game in a fair amount of time is to do dungeon runs.

Who cares about precursors when even the basic stuff is starting to get hard to come by. They need to get rid of junk loot. White/blue and green are the junk loot we don't need more. Too much of this game relies on the MF.

I've given up on Legendary. Foefire or Vision of the Mists is my legendary. They got a grind but at least it won't take years on one character.